The History of Straight Arrow PR 2007-2025
By William J. Hawkins
Eighteen years ago, Bonnie Lennon and I thought it would be worthwhile to assist highly qualified authors and experts who focused on important subjects. We felt we could help these professionals increase their influence via media coverage and public speaking.
Our initial group of clients included Chris Mooney (The Republican War on Science) who was with the Washington Post. Since Chris was interested in public speaking, we were able to get him established with the highly respected Keppler Speakers Agency.
We also had the pleasure of promoting University of Virginia Professor (now at Stanford) Jennifer Burns (Goddess of the Market: Ayn Rand and the American Right). Her appearance on The Factor with Bill O’Reilly (Fox), the #1 show on cable TV at the time, revealed her extraordinary charisma.
Legendary archeologist and UC Santa Barbara professor Brian Fagan (The Great Warming) was another distinguished author we enjoyed promoting. An appearance on the Daily Show with Jon Stewart demonstrated his brilliance and charm. In response to his request to find an appropriate speakers bureau, we helped him get established with the well regarded Lyceum Agency.
As time passed, we promoted many other impressive clients including the controversial anthropologist Lionel Tiger who authored the early books on the decline of males. We also promoted Swarthmore College Professor Dominic Tierney (How We Fight and The Right Way to Lose a War), as well as former Washington Post Middle East Bureau Chief Tom Lippman an expert on Saudi Arabia.
Ten years ago, we began inviting authors who were published by academic presses to consider our services. These were mostly lesser known professors; however, they were superb communicators who taught at prestigious colleges. Since many of these individuals were interested in public speaking, we established direct relationships with the leading city forums, colleges, law schools, business schools, think tanks, and other organizations in the U.S.
During this period, many of our national and major market media contacts who previously interviewed our clients became more interested in political advocates from the two major parties. Nevertheless, we continued to recruit and represent a smaller number of clients. For example, we promoted Jonathan J.T. Ward Ph.D. (China’s Vision of Victory), who was one of the first scholars to warn American citizens about the growing economic and military threats from the Chinese Communist Party. We were also pleased to promote Skidmore College Professor Robert Boyers – an early advocate for more intellectual diversity on college campuses, and University of Richmond scholar Stephen Nash who focused on protecting our national parks.
Note: Due to Covid-19, our public speaking promotion program was temporarily suspended early in 2020. Since reactivating our service in 2022, we have had the pleasure of promoting another outstanding group of authors (See Clients page).
As we enter 2026, we look foreword to assisting more distinguished college professors, attorneys, and journalists who focus on important subjects — including those who offer new insights on how to solve national and international problems.
Fortunately, a growing number of program producers in the legacy media are now more interested problem solvers again. This is in response to the emergence of large audience podcasts that attracted independent voters.
Straight Arrow PR/Tampa Bay, Florida/StraightArrowPR1@gmail.com/727-647-8453
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